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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jim Ireton

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Salisbury, Maryland#Mayors_of_Salisbury. There's not a huge amount of consensus here, but given that the amount of coverage may result in the name being searched, a redirect to the city is unexceptional. Black Kite (talk) 00:23, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jim Ireton

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Jim Ireton (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Fails WP:POLITICIAN. Doesn't really meet notability standards. He is a local politician. Citations are nearly all local. City is small. It should keep us busy if we are going to allow bios on every mayor that ever has been elected, anywhere in the world. The situation will be worse than with athletes or musicians. Student7 (talk) 14:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:OUTCOMES, a historic first, such as a city's first-ever woman, African American or LGBT mayor, can qualify for an article on those grounds regardless of whether or not the city's mayors would otherwise qualify on a "size of the city" criterion. And even the "size of the city" is intentionally not defined as a specific population cutoff (given that Wikipedia specifically deprecates arbitrary size cutoffs), but as the more general qualification that the city merely needs to have "regional prominence" — a criterion which, at least to me, certainly includes the anchor city of a metropolitan statistical area with a population of over 100,000, whose article describes it as the largest city and the commercial hub of a well-defined and notable geographic region. You're free to have a different opinion on that latter argument, certainly, but given that the guy was a historic first he passes on that criterion regardless of what anybody thinks about whether the city is "regionally prominent" enough to permit articles about the mayors who preceded him. Keep. Bearcat (talk) 15:29, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. czar · · 17:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Maryland-related deletion discussions. czar · · 17:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. czar · · 17:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Bearcat.--В и к и T 14:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Bearcat and WP:OUTCOMES. David (talk) 16:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I'm not seeing significant coverage of the subject in secondary sources to pass WP:BIO although I see lots of incidental news coverage. The difference between "historic first" and "that's nice, a novelty" is a matter of how much attention people pay to the matter. I personally think it's a good thing about America that a town's first openly gay mayor attracts more of the second variety of attention than the first, but that's neither here nor there. Since he doesn't pass WP:POLITICIAN either, I don't think we'd lose anything by maintaining standards and deleting this article. RayTalk 19:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep or Redirect to Salisbury, Maryland. The subject of this AfD has received passing mention in multiple non-primary reliable sources, however it can be argued whether or not those multiple mentions would add up to significant in-depth coverage of the individual himself, and thus WP:GNG & WP:ANYBIO notability is debatable. Most of the mentions could be argued to be routine coverage of the sources local to the city which the subject is mayor of in the course of his duties in elected office. As the city is not a major city the subject is not automatically notable as stated at POLOUTCOMES:

    Municipal politicians are not inherently notable just for being in politics, but neither are they inherently non-notable just because they are in local politics. Each case is evaluated on its own individual merits. Mayors of cities of at least regional prominence have usually survived AFD, although the article should say more than just "Jane Doe is the mayor of Cityville". Mayors of smaller towns, however, are generally deemed not notable just for being mayors, although they may be notable for other reasons in addition to their mayoralty (e.g. having previously held a more notable office).

    However, there is WP:POLOUTCOMES which states:

    Politicians who (a) represent a historic first, such as the first woman, first person of colour or first LGBT person elected to a municipal government, ...

    Therefore, per POLOUTCOMES I cannot support deletion due to the historic first. That being said the subject may only be locally notable, and thus WP:LOCAL should be considered, and as such an alternative to having a standalone article, as the first quote of POLOUTCOMES advises against, which is contradicted by the second quote, is to redirect the the article to Salisbury, Maryland#Government. The verified information of the locally notable first can be added to this section, and if the subject received in-depth coverage the article can be recreated.
The above statement maybe misleading. Salisbury has a population of 30,343 as of the 2010 U.S. Census. The subject of this AfD is not elected over the MSA which is stated above, but only the city itself. For instance, the city of San Marcos, California is one of the anchor cities of its MSA (San Diego, and Carlsbad being the other two) however it is not in the top 50 of the largest cities in California (#88) and is not as regionally significant as other larger cities within its county. Therefore having its name in a U.S. Census Bureau designated region does not make the city, and its mayor, automatically notable IMHO.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 14:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. So we can look forward to "First Catholic Mayor," "First Lutheran Mayor," "First U-U Mayor," "First convicted felon," "First mayor to be convicted while in office," "First mayor to admit to inhaling while smoking marijuana," "First mayor to approve of dancing (assuming the city goes back to the 19th century," "First mayor to advocate prohibition," "First mayor to advocate repeal of Prohibition," "First mayor to approve/disapprove of secession/uniting with the Union during the Civil War," "First mayor to help with/try to stop the Underground Railway," (There was also a reverse organization!)? In short a rather infinity of articles, all heavily dependent on then-current cultural trends, but (like Prohibition), somewhat limited in interest now? Student7 (talk) 22:30, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Look up the logical fallacy of reductio ad absurdum if you think that most of those would ever qualify as "historic firsts" that would ever get a person past WP:POLITICIAN. Bearcat (talk) 05:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It seems to me that this is, at best a WP:BLP1E article. The mayor did not run, nor is intending to implement a program that would advance the cause of the LGBT community. He is essentially, WP:LOWPROFILE, since he does not address LGBT issues on a continuing basis. He is mayor of all the people, which is good government, but bad for notability! Suggest merging to Salisbury article. Student7 (talk) 01:50, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not one LGBT politician in history has ever focused exclusively on LGBT issues to the detriment of actually representing all the people, in precisely the same way as a woman mayor does not somehow fail to be the mayor of the men in her city just because she's a woman. Bearcat (talk) 05:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I think we should not create articles for the "first x" unless we can show that this gained wide notability. If he was the "first x" in all of Maryland maybe, but if he is just the "first x" for a small local that is not notable enoug.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:58, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, LFaraone 01:01, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.